


Preserved in Jars

by patxaran



Series: Leopikaweek2016 on tumblr [4]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Drama, Gen, Good Intentions Bad Results, Heist, Humor, M/M, flesh collectors are so damn evil, kurapika's disguises, kurta eyes and murder go hand-in-hand, leorio is smart okay?, making out for the sake of the investigation, museum, sexist assholes, the hxh world is not fair, the monetization of human tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-19 18:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8221216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patxaran/pseuds/patxaran
Summary: Kurapika and Leorio team up to steal a set of Kurta eyes from a natural history museum. Except it turns out Kurta eyes and murder go hand in hand.





	1. A Scathing Review and a Plan

**Author's Note:**

> 1: I tried to write a cute leopika museum heist, but then this got dark. A guy dies. Not our guys (re: not Leo or Pika). But like, Kurta eyes go hand-in-hand with murder, so.
> 
> 2: We touch on the monetization of human tragedy, sexism, and the bad in the world that is sometimes deliberate and other times full of shiny, perfect, good intentions.
> 
> 3: Fic inspired mainly by the song “El Museo de Historia Natural” by Los Punsetes. It is super loosely translated on the tumblr account of this fanfic pseudonym, just check the "leopika" or the "translation" or the "i want to apologize to spanish" tags.

So, funny thing. Kurapika actually needed to break in to the Susina Natural History Museum real quick and steal a set of eyes on display in the tribal cultures exhibit. No big deal there. Kurapika was all sorts of underworld connected to various groups of professionals with expertise in the illicit, precipitous procurement of held items. He only need write the check, and the eyes would be waiting on his desk, neatly wrapped in brown paper and string, within a fortnight.

Indeed, this had more or less been Kurapika's plan from the moment he'd visited the museum and seen the gloriously lit and beautifully set eyes in person. Instead of floating listlessly around in their preserving liquid, as was the modern aesthetic in the world of body part collection, these eyes had been fixed, anchored in place with a nearly invisible mount made of transparent material. The pair was equally as old as the outdated setting. They were far too old to be the eyes of anyone Kurapika would've known. But, they were Kurta eyes nonetheless, and therefore he would have them. Only, he wouldn't break his neck zip-lining across a vacant plaza at midnight and then rappelling through a carefully cut hole in the glass ceiling of the entrance hall. That sort of thing could be left to the ski-masked experts.

The plan had only recently changed from the original hands-off approach Kurapika had envisioned. Now, it looked as though he might need to also investigate the labyrinthine corridors of the various offices and storerooms beyond the public exhibits, because rumor now had it there were another two sets of Kurta eyes hidden in the museum's collections.

A recently published paper on the proper classification of various extinct peoples of the world had cited a curator of cultural anthropology at the Susina Museum of Natural History as being a rare expert in the "Kuruta" people ("Kuruta" being the name of the clan in academia). The author had seen two relatively well-known sets of eyes, with hints at the existence of a third set briefly glimpsed. Briefly, because they'd been part of the group of exclusive, high quality specimens derived from the last "harvest" of such items by black market body parts purveyors. This made them a somewhat distasteful acquisition, as the massacre they'd been derived from had, coincidentally, also served as the pivotal extinction event for the entire Kurta clan.

In the section of the published paper pertaining to the Kurta people, the author had lamented their demise as one would any decimated human population, but had also presented as fact a recent theory gaining traction in intellectual circles that the Kurta, whom none of the intellectuals had ever seen or met, had been dangerous. People who knew nothing but how to exaggerate a flair for the dramatic were beginning to postulate that the Kurta had somehow maybe brought their destruction upon themselves by being such a divisive presence in their home province. If any people could be said to have partly deserved their home village being converted into a veritable death-camp designed to increase the vibrancy of their renowned eyes as they were physically and psychologically tortured to an infuriated and agonizing end, perhaps the Kurta were those people.

Kurapika had scoffed darkly at the slanderous statements about his clan and had presumed that anyone could say anything they wanted about the dead. Who were the dead to argue? He'd then employed his mafia connections to submit, under a pseudonym, a scathing critique of the offending paper to a higher impact publication in its field.

With a deft hand and erudite voice, Kurapika lambasted the work, directing particular attention to its poorly sourced information about the Kurta, which was clearly based on little more than hearsay and extrapolation from the folk stories told among outsiders to the clan. Kurapika was something of an expert of the anthropological record of his people, and was plenty capable of citing a whole range of relevant works in several languages that together bore a more accurate approximation of the sort of people the Kurta had actually been. The author of the paper had shown no such expertise, resorting to hyperbole-ridden comparisons of the people to demons, instead of accepting the terrifying reality of the extent of human greed and the unregulated horror-show of vice and inhumanity that was underground trafficking of human body parts in the modern world.

Two weeks following the publication of his review, Kurapika's pseudonym's request to view the Kurta specimens in the Susina Museum of Natural History was granted. Now, there was the matter of finding a suitable representative to send. This would have to be someone who Kurapika could trust, who would have no qualms about stealing from a venerable institution, and who, most importantly, looked scholarly and yet abrasive in a way that matched the tone of Kurapika's review of the paper.

Clearly, no such person truly existed. However, in a pinch, Leorio Paladiknight proved the next best thing. Plus, due to having won a trip to the Susina Plum Festival from the travel agency near his apartment, he was also conveniently in town.

"What do you want?" asked Leorio curtly as he collected his purchases. He hadn't paused a moment in his haggling down the price of two kilos of blushing purple plums that were said to be the best the in the world, the true standard by which all things plum flavored were measured. "You look like you need something."

Kurapika needed a lot, but he wasn't about to be so direct about it. He'd "run into" Leorio out here in the market expecting that Leorio would be pleased to see him. Leorio wasn't. Leorio was annoyed that Kurapika had avoided him for months and only finally bothered to show up when there was something he could use Leorio for. It carried the unpleasant implication that Leorio was more of a resource than a friend in Kurapika's estimation, and Leorio would have none of that. Kurapika could turn around and dive right back into his hole in the ground for all Leorio cared.

Kurapika was pressed for time, which made him both unwilling and unable to work out Leorio's hurt feelings. Instead, he told Leorio about the eyes in the museum, suggested that Leorio should go see them himself, and then left to attend to another appointment that didn't actually exist. In the evening, Leorio called him back.

"What do you need me for?"

Kurapika explained the situation as it currently stood, as well as the implication that there were three sets of eyes in total to be gained.

"Why do I have to do it? I'm not even an expert on the Kurta."

"Because, though the curator might not know who I am, that doesn't mean others who are likewise interested in the eyes won't know me. It's common knowledge in the flesh collector's market that I bet nearly three billion on a set of eyes for the Nostrade family. If one of my competitors sees me staking out the museum, they'll be encouraged to either act sooner, or to inhibit my progress in some way."

"You can go in a disguise."

"Two of us will cover more ground."

"Someone might recognize me from the Hunter Association chairman elections."

"Not if you don't wear your glasses."

"These glasses are indispensable. They tie together my entire look."

"And if you unravel that look by removing the glasses, Leorio, you're a complete stranger to the world. You have a decent but unremarkable face, which means your only distinguishing feature is your height, but even then your face is so forgettable that you could easily be confused with any other tall person in the world matching your complexion. Plus, being tall makes you look more intelligent."

"What?"

"People are looking up at you all the time; it's like when you're a child and you look up to everyone who's more capable and intellige—"

"You don't think my face is memorable? You know, it would be much less hurtful to just call me unattractive and boring right out, not qualify it for me."

"Well, if by unattractive you mean not handsome, then yes."

" _Ouch_. Nope. Nevermind. Still hurts."

"If you mean ugly, then no. If you were ugly, people would recognize you more. You're not outstanding in either direction, ugly or attractive. You're just…normal."

"Are you asking me to help you, or are you just planning to insult me? Because if I'd wanted to be insulted for a week, I'd have converted this trip into a travel package of less or equivalent value and gone to hang out with Killua."

"I'm asking you to help me."

"Then don't treat me like an idiot. You don't need to put me in my place every time I question a decision, even in jest. I've already agreed to help you, so I'm gong to help you. Don't push me around, and don't try to manipulate me. I'm not your underling. I'm helping of my own volition."

"Oh. I didn't realize that I was—"

"I figured you didn't. I'm just letting you know so you know to try not to be a dick all the time. I'll follow your plan, but that doesn't mean you're ordering me around. I get to ask questions. I'm not undermining you; I'm just trying to facilitate our working together. Because I do this with you, not for you."

"Of course, Leorio."

"Duh, Kurapika."


	2. Dr. Lina Topo and Dr. Cavaliere

"It's terrific to meet you, Mr. Cavaliere," proclaimed the smiling, equally tall man in pince-nez shaking Leorio's hand. Leorio offered a closed mouth smile, as in that moment it struck him that he couldn't imagine a truly intelligent person smiling with teeth. He went for curt and to-the-point, like someone with a million ideas and little time for small talk.

"I'm the curator of the anthropology department, Dr. Ladro," said the man in continuation when their handshake broke. He turned upon the person besides Leorio next. "May I ask who this is?"

"Dr. Lina Topo," said Leorio, gesturing to Kurapika. "My assistant, an expert in the languages and cultures of Lukso Province. She arrived recently from that part of the world and plans to study here in at the university in Susina. She's been indispensable in my research. I've offered to help her around and acquaint herself with the people she's bound to run into. I imagine she'll eventually find her way to the museum while she's here."

"Pleasure to meet you," said Dr. Ladro, layering a level of sweetness and condescension to his tone that caused Leorio to harrumph inaudibly under his breath. Leorio didn't really care if Kurapika was embarrassed or not; Leorio was offended enough for the both of them. The shift in Dr. Ladro's manner was much too obvious.

Kurapika nodded and reached for the hand Dr. Ladro held out, saying nothing. Instead of shaking Kurapika's hand, however, Dr. Ladro took it in his and patted it reassuringly, as though Kurapika—or Lina—were a child he was about to offer the promise of a treat to if Kurapika behaved well during his trip to the museum today. Kurapika cleared his throat and looked up at Leorio, who interceded swiftly.

"Dr. Topo speaks ten langauges, but until recently has only read in the Hunter language. She's rather reticent, but that's just because the city is so new to her. She's really excited to see the Kurta eyes."

Every word Leorio said grew fainter and faker though the syllables still propelled themselves from his mouth. The movement of his lips was barely perceptible as they actively protested in rebellion against the script. Leorio stubbornly stuck to the plan, however, and continued to play his part without deviating too far.

"We can pass them on the way to my office," said Dr. Ladro with a wide smile. "Take all the time you want," he said, addressing Kurapika, "no need to hurry on our account. We'll only be down the hall."

Leorio followed Dr. Ladro across the wide entrance hall with the domed ceiling, past a towering reproduction of a viperlizard nest, through a set of double doors, and down the hall to the tribal cultures exhibit. Dr. Ladro explained to Leorio, and primarily to _just_ Leorio, the plans taking form to move the Kurta eyes and information panels to the historical cultures exhibit. The debate underway at this moment was simply how much time needed to pass from the Kurta's demise before they could finally make their entrance into the realm of transitory, historic mention in the past tense.

"Take as long a look as you'd like of them," said Dr. Ladro in reminder to Kurpaika as the three came upon the lit cylinder containing the Kurta eyes. "There aren't many Kurta eyes left, and the majority have been secreted away by private collectors. This might be the only pair you ever get to see in your entire life."

Kurapika nodded slowly and feigned an appreciative observation of the eyes. Dr. Ladro motioned for Leorio to continue on with him to his office. Leorio reached to grabbed Kurapika's shoulder and usher him along as well, but Dr. Ladro indicated not to bother Kurapika, and, for some reason Leorio couldn't immediately place, winked knowingly.

"I'm very interested in the translation and wider circulation of some of the Kurta sources mentioned in your article," said Dr. Ladro as he and Leorio took seats across a small table in the curator's office. "With the further dissemination of such material, we are sure to avert the display of ignorance that seems to have become a hallmark of those in our part of the world concerning discussions about the Kurta people."

"I was led to most of my sources with the tremendous assistance of Dr. Topo," said Leorio. He glanced to the door expectantly. "We ought to wait for her…."

"Let her appreciate the Kurta eyes a little," said Dr. Ladro. "That's what we display them for. Now, I've compiled a list of what you cited already. The Kurta grammar book you mentioned that was salvaged from the remains of the village; I believe it is currently being held in the Mirabella Center, and I was wondering if you had any contact…."

Over an hour passed, Leorio volleying questions from Dr. Ladro enough to show he was familiar with the material Dr. Ladro was going over and able to provide contacts Dr. Ladro could follow up with. This was all very hard work for Leorio, who'd been forced to learn the contents and location of every reference in only a single day of studying. When his knowledge faltered, he gave the excuse that Dr. Topo knew better than he did about many of the primary sources on the Kurta people. He frequently suggested waiting for Dr. Topo, but Dr. Ladro never seemed to think it was necessary. He'd shrug and say that Leorio could confer with her later, and then he'd put an annotation in his notes to touch base on that point tomorrow.

Kurapika never joined them. When Leorio excused himself a moment to head to the restroom, he took a detour and peered out into the gallery. He noticed, without much surprise, that Kurapika wasn't there.

"Shit," muttered Leorio. The plan had been for Leorio and Kurapika to part ways at some point, but Leorio hadn't realized Kurapika would take the chance so soon. He and his ridiculous curly wig were probably stirring up dust in hidden storerooms right now. Leorio thought this was a bit premature of Kurapika. They didn't have any idea yet where the eyes might be. The museum was much too large to just amble about in.

Leorio sighed and slumped his shoulders, turning back to the office to continue speaking with Dr. Ladro about the preservation of the true Kurta memory for subsequent generations. This did not thrill him, but it was the only thing he could do.

"We'll have to meet with the director and the head of finances to create a budget, but I do believe this is the sort of work and research our museum is meant to do. Being the last institution that hasn't sold off their eyes, and which actively strives to educate the public about the Kurta with our active exhibits, it is our responsibility to be as accurate as possible. We must endeavor to honor the memory of this lost clan now that they've been destroyed. The information we can collect is all the world has left of them."

"It's in honor to their memory that you display a pair of eyes in a jar for tourists to ogle at?" asked Leorio, aggressively bored and tired at this point. "Those eyes are the precise reason there are no more Kurta left."

"Actually, we have the only humanely gathered pair of Kurta eyes in the world here."

Leorio sipped the watery coffee one of the office assistants had brought to him and Mr. Ladro. At the mention of Kurta eyes being extracted by humane means, he arched an inquiring brow. Leorio was doing very well at matching the stern and aloof character he'd read in Kurapika's article. Indeed, Leorio had been doing nothing but his best Kurapika impression the entire time. He only had to make a few concessions for the sake of practicality, such as trying not to lose his temper and threatening people when he felt the Kurta were being disrespected. Instead, he smugly scoffed and imagined it was a toned down version of virtually the same response.

"The eyes go red when a Kurta is emotionally agitated," said Leorio. "How does one extract the eyes in a humane way when it is obvious that the Kurta who must've possessed them died in the grip of great emotion? Which is to say, the person died in a sudden, unexpected or precipitous way, and likely felt very strongly about not dying at the exact moment?"

"Our eyes are from an asylum near Lukso Capital. A Kurta man was held there for a several months, slowly dying. You're certainly, sadly, right about the emotional agitation needed to initiate the red-eyed response. The case was that this subject was insane in such a way that he was incessantly, eternally agitated. His life force was draining away, like a running tap, and in desperation, he was admitted to the hospital by his non-Kurta wife against the wishes of the clan. Later, he died in the asylum, and his eyes were extracted."

"How did he die? Kurta don't retain their red eyes if their deaths are lingering. It doesn't seem that open tap of energy was allowed to run out on its own."

"According to the official record, there was an accident. Some quarrel with an orderly. Something like that."

"And the proper team and materials to preform a clean enucleation just so happened to be on hand to preserve the eyes."

"There was already a claim on the eyes in the event that the man died suddenly, so the staff were probably attentive to that."

"If there was money involved, it likely wasn't much of an accident, don't you think?"

"Well, the man was dying anyway."

"We're all dying anyway. Only, strangers normally don't have standing claims on a single part of us that will be harvested upon our deaths. Very few of us, dead, are worth as much as even a single Kurta eye."

Dr. Ladro was familiar with the argument against there being any true method to extract a pair of Kurta eyes from their host humanely. The criticisms and assertions of foul play that Leorio threw at him now across the tray of coffee were not revelations. Dr. Ladro dutifully stuck to his script of the eyes being extracted in a more acceptable manner than the usual means, because without such a story, it would've been unethical to display them. It was uncertain if Dr. Ladro even believed what he was forced to recite. Perhaps he didn't, because instead of keeping up the tired, trained argument, Dr. Ladro slightly altered the course of the discussion to what he felt like talking about more.

"Do you know there's a different light in the red of a Kurta's eyes depending on the cause of the intense emotion they died feeling?" asked Dr. Ladro. "It's well-documented, of course, so you must have some idea. Flesh collectors have taken a particular interest in that sort of thing. Some eyes are more valuable than the others based on the intensity of the light, which is approximate to judging the gem quality of a precious stone."

"I that know anger is the most brilliant."

"Anger has the clearest and cleanest light. But, it's difficult to sustain pure anger in a subject before that anger begins to convert to anguished desperation. Anguish pollutes the product, making it duller and less valuable to a collector. This is why in the past there were so few quality Kurta eyes in collections. Agitating more than a few Kurta at once might've at first earned you their anger, but if you kept killing droves of them with no escape, fear and despair would replace the anger in many of the subjects, ruining their eyes as the suffering Kurta possessing them basically lost all hope."

"What's your point?"

"What I want to say is that the last harvest of Kurta eyes was truly an impressive feat of psychological manipulation as well as professional removal and preservation of so many specimens."

"That impresses you? It's horrific and terrible. It wasn't a harvest; it was a massacre."

"I know your opinion already from the tone of your article. Believe me, I agree with you entirely. That is why you ought to speak to the director alongside me, perhaps even stay on here a while and help in our work. Eventually, I want to dedicate an entire exhibit to the threat of erasure—even _extinction_ —faced by human groups throughout the world today. If we don't talk about what has happened to the Kurta in our recent past, who is to say these kinds of atrocities won't repeat? If we stand back and let the criminals and murderers of the world take what they want from innocent people just so they can get rich, then we might as well treat every person as a collection of parts with a price on each one. What about other clans with unique body attributes, people with rare genetic mutations, or possessing any other sort of outlier to the normal standard that a flesh collector can then place a value on and auction off to the highest bidder on the black market? Who will protect these people? Who will protect us all?"

Leorio couldn't think what to say to this. He adjusted the stupid bow-tie Kurapika had insisted would make him look smarter, more eccentric, and more forgivable if he struck anyone as suspicious during his visit.

"I'm going to have to speak to my assistant," said Leorio. He once more eyed the door as he wavered, and Dr. Ladro nodded with the same knowingness he'd winked at Leorio earlier. What Dr. Ladro imagined he knew, Leorio could only guess. Leorio wasn't sure he appreciated the insinuation.

"Certainly, speak to her. You can bring her along to help with your research as well," said Dr. Ladro. "We wouldn't want you without your invaluable assistant."


	3. Through the Storerooms to the Vaults

"Why do I have to I parade you around and speak for you like you're an idiot?" asked Leorio the next morning as he and Kurapika walked through a plant exhibit while they waited for Dr. Ladro to arrive. There'd been a traffic delay, and it was bad enough that Dr. Ladro would be another hour on his commute.

"Because in this country things are like that."

"Then why the hell does Lina choose to study here?"

"Because Lina hasn't got a choice. This place has a lot of Kurta artifacts and three sets of Kurta eyes. Lina has to make sacrifices."

"Lina is a genius, speaks ten damn languages, and is an expert in her field. Lina has a Ph.D, and I'm just _Mr._ Cavaliere. Lina deserves better."

"Lina does, Leorio, but that's not what we're here for. I'm going to wander off now."

Leorio stopped and looked to Kurapika, but Kurapika was already disappearing between two displays Leorio was pretty sure weren't intended to be got behind. Leorio reached out with his long arm and grabbed Kurapika by the shoulder to stop him.

"What?" asked Leorio. "Wandering off?"

"I'm supposed to not know any better. If someone finds me, they will just bring me back to you, my designated keeper."

"I still think you'll get in trouble if anyone catches you."

"Not likely. You might, though."

"Thanks, Lina."

"See you in an hour for lunch with Dr. Ladro, Mr. Cavaliere."

Leorio sighed and let Kurapika go. He didn't like Kurapika disguised as a woman. It aggravated him with the constant reminder of all the reasons why such a disguise worked in those aspects other than just concealing Kurapika's identity. Kurapika wasn't just wearing a costume, but also taking advantage of all the assumptions people had about women being innocuous, especially when those women were pretty. And Kurapika was always a pretty woman, always stylish, always confident, always perfect. Even the leader of the damn Phantom Troupe, an organization that had it's own dangerous and beautiful women in it, had thought it necessary to comment with surprise that he hadn't expected that the person who'd wanted to kill him might've been a woman. Leorio credited such a comment with making Kurapika's instinct to always go under cover as a woman transform from being just a working preference to a justified and logical choice in Kurapika's mind.

It was one thing to dress as a girl. It was entirely another to take full advantage of all the subtle social rules and stereotypes that went along with being _considered_ a girl. Leorio hated that Kurapika's choice of disguise might be right, though. He hated that Kurapika had looked at the world, seen everything wrong with it, and instead of giving a crap, had just twisted it to be used to his advantage. Leorio gave a crap about absolutely everything way too much to just accept that the world was one way. He wore too much damn heart on his sleeve to physically summon the tremendous strength necessary to shrug and carry on.

"I'm going to let you in on a secret, Mr. Cavaliere," said Dr. Ladro after they'd been talking for a while about the conditions under which Leorio would help with the Kurta research and the development of the projected exhibit. "It's about the centerpiece I want for the exhibit, something I think will drive home the real tragedy of the final act of the Kurta story."

"You have a Kurta in a cage somewhere, don't you?" asked Leorio in a very unfunny joke just to see if Dr. Ladro would feign laugher. Dr. Ladro feigned a weak and insipid smile. Leorio supposed this was an indication of the level of trust that had developed between them. Dr. Ladro could now openly admit to Leorio when a joke hadn't gone over, instead of forcing a laugh to appease him. At that moment Leorio knew Dr. Ladro was planning to tell him about the Kurta eyes in the collections.

"I have acquired recently two sets of eyes. Only one has been seen. You commented on it in your article, speculating that the Susina Museum of Natural History was meddling in the flesh collection market for the sake of ticket sales, presumably once the bad-taste and hype around the Kurta massacre had died down. I'm not an idiot. I saw your implication that because our attendance went up following the news reports about the Kurta--what with people naturally coming here from all around the world to see the only set of Kurta eyes on public display--that we hoped to cash in on the tragedy even more by acquiring a set of higher quality to supplement our current exhibit."

"What the hell else could you be doing?" asked Leorio stiffly, taking from Dr. Ladro's tone that Dr. Ladro expected some sort of reprimand directed at him for the hypothetical actions of his board of trustees. "I know a museum is a business, and I know you've made a lot of money from the eyes already."

"I can't say we haven't. But, what I want to tell you is that my purpose for the next exhibit is not just to give people dead, macabre gems to ogle. I'd like to show you what I mean, and I hope what I propose to you is all the clearer for it."

"We'll see," said Leorio. He shrugged like he wasn't sure, but his heart had already begun to beat faster.

Dr. Ladro led Leorio out of his office and to a flight of stairs Leorio would never have even seen if Dr. Ladro hadn't called his attention after disappearing down them. The stairwells and passageways beyond the main offices were dingy and dark, more workspaces than anything meant for public eyes. The further one delved, the more ancient and tightly packed the corridors became. In one crowded department, they were passing rows of cabinets full of drawers, filled with innumerable fossils. In the next, it was stones and minerals. They arrived at a pale, nondescript door with a sign warning that authorized persons could not enter. This opened to a basement hall that seemed to connect the main body of the museum to the end of another adjoining wing. At the end of this hall, the zoology department began, and with it, the more gruesome features of the anthropology department as well; the human remains.

They first passed through dry storage, where bones were lain out in orderly arrangements on trays in drawers, or sorted by type and age in various clear containers for quick identification and sorting. The occasional specimens that retained their flesh had been desiccated to the point that they'd lost much of their relatable human aspect. There was also the occasional shrunken head and pile of decorated scalps. The great majority of the things in these rooms, however, where tucked away, out of sight. Only in one room did the contents not fit in a drawer. Here, grotesque sculptures stood in file, the flesh having been dried and treated to a leathery consistency indistinguishable from something you might give a dog to chew on as a toy. As they passed these modern mummies with their dull plastic shine, Dr. Ladro mentioned there were a few ancient mummies in another, further room that was not so easily accessed, as ancient mummies had a high resale value on the black market.

They progressed further, deeper into the secretive nooks and crannies of the institution, and the air began to change. There was another dark, foreboding hallway, and Leorio instantly knew where they were headed. They'd come at last to the wet storage, its smell announcing it before Dr. Ladro had even led Leorio a quarter of the way down the hall.

As a medical student, Leorio wasn't easily fazed by the sight of things such as stillborn babies, brains, and assorted parts of diseased human bodies squeezed into age-tinted jars of formalin and other formaldehyde based preservation liquids. The smell no longer disturbed him, because it was the smell of embalming chemicals and preferable by far to the smell of rot and decay that would've reigned otherwise. Rows upon rows of suspended death and horror, preserved for however much of an eternity the museum lasted to contain them, marched their way up and down rows of shelves in these rooms. A switched was flipped, illuminating the room's contents beneath a stark, white light that carried no warmth in its glow.

"This way, sorry for the shortcut," said Dr. Ladro as he motioned for Leorio to follow him between the aisles. They emerged from a door at the other end, crossed another small hall (the place was replete with halls), and stopped before a room Dr. Ladro implied was some sort of protected safe disguised outwardly as an office.

"These eyes are quite literally the most expensive items in the museum," said Dr. Ladro as he finished unlocking the door. He hadn't let Leorio watch the entire procedure. "As you and I know, people will literally kill for these things. I'll show you the originals now, but the idea is to _duplicate_ them for the public display. It's too risky to have the real ones out, and also, they'll deteriorate in direct light for too long."

Leorio was shown into a small room with various, shadowy shelves filled with boxes. They were boxes within an even larger box, for Leorio was sure the room was lined with a protective shield to make breaking into it impossible from an adjoining office. Dr. Ladro asked nicely for Leorio to sit at the only table while Dr. Ladro quickly locked the door behind them. Dr. Ladro then disappeared amongst the furthest shelves, pulling down two boxes and setting them on the table in front of Leorio. He then took the seat across.

"First, here is the museum's second set of Kurta eyes, which I'm sure you've heard about. We used to not keep them locked up in this room, but once the market price shot up due to…well, you know…it was suddenly exceedingly valuable and merited the extra protection. Here, take it out and have a look."

Leorio pulled the indicated box closer to him and lifted the lid. Nestled carefully inside with plenty of padding to stabilize its position, was a small jar of sorts like those in the other room. This jar, however, didn't carry the faint smell of embalming liquids, because such a trait was undesirable in the world of flesh collection. There was something faintly ironic about the fact that human flesh collectors reveled in the acquisition of dead things, organic tissues removed from their living bodies, and yet they couldn't stand the stench of the reminder that their dear possessions were only delicately preserved. Flesh collectors didn't accept the transient nature of organic matter, but instead demanded that it was frozen in time perfectly so that they could amass it in their hidden hoards of human oddities.

Leorio adjusted the single, strong light hanging above the table and then gingerly removed the jar form its box. Dr. Ladro made an approving sound, as though he'd just introduced Leorio to an old friend of his. The eagerness on Dr. Ladro's face was childlike.

"As you can see, the brilliance of these eyes is not very great," said Dr. Ladro, barely able to wait patiently and give Leorio a full and reasonable five minutes to look over the eyes himself in quiet. "Remember our discussion yesterday about the emotions? These are an example of inferior eyes. They are a higher quality, of course, by color, than the madman's eyes in the galleries, as you can see. Those eyes are more clouded and without much discernible feeling in them. However, these eyes here were comprehending and feeling in their last moments. These eyes were in true anguish. Also note the loose connective fibers and the still attached tissue near the edges indicating that they were also improperly enucleated. This was a very poor job, very unprofessional."

"I guess the implication is that this person was murdered for their eyes," said Leorio, turning the jar over in his hands. "It was simply for the money, and the amateur who did so came at the task knowing only that the eyes had to be red to be worth anything."

"That is a close interpretation," agreed Dr. Ladro with a slow nod. "This specimen is an adolescent. There is a record of a non-Kurta man who married a Kurta woman and adopted her child. For whatever reason, he murdered the wife intending to take her eyes, but blotched the removal and took the child's instead. He was arrested trying to sell them, and the eyes were taken in as evidence. Our department heard of them and bought them rather cheaply. That was more than thirty years ago."

Leorio's grip in the glass tightened.

"And what's in the other box?" asked Leorio. He slowly, reluctantly, placed the jar he was holding back into its container. Dr. Ladro told him to keep it out for comparison, and Leorio did so with equal reluctance.

"These are a pair from the precious, priceless Last Harvest of eyes from the Kurta. The quality is astounding. Take a look. Here, I'll help."

Eager as he was to share this rare sight with Leorio, Dr. Ladro threw open the box for him. He lifted the next vessel, more of a sleek, elegant canister than a jar, like one would lift a mewling child from its crib. He handed it carefully to Leorio in the same manner, smiling softly as he anticipated Leorio's reaction with bated breath.

Leorio couldn't hide his first, visceral response; a sharp intake of breath. Leorio knew the look reflected back at him from the crystalline clear liquid the eyes bobbed about in like pickled eggs. More than anything now, he felt he was holding something human, something that had once had a body and a soul and life. These were not specimens. They didn't belong to so many unspecified subjects and hosts as Dr. Ladro so consistently said. These were eyes ripped from a dead face, a person's face after their life had been extinguished in an overwhelming moment of intense fury and defiance. He'd seen it before, too many times, flashing in the glance of the very man who'd dragged him here and had him calling himself Cavaliere. The light in these eyes was the same light. The wrath in these eyes was the same wrath.

"They're amazing, aren't they?" asked Dr. Ladro, taking Leorio's breathless silence for amazement and not utter aghast. "They were donated to the museum by an anonymous collector. They're worth _billions_. When you see something like this, you perhaps, finally, understand a little… _why_."

"Why an entire clan was massacred, children mutilated before their parents, families forced to face each other as members were beheaded and their eyes taken, every last person dead, Kurta or otherwise, over the course of days?"

"Well."

"I refuse to understand it. And I think putting these on display might be a bad idea. The Kurta are more than the value of their eyes. If you display these, even just a reproduction, you'll just be regularizing the idea that the only thing that ever mattered about this entire clan, about this destroyed people, is how fantastic a scarlet their eyes turned when they were righteously pissed off."

"But if people have an idea how brilliant the eyes become when the subject has suffered in different ways, they'll be able to sympathize with how much the subject had to go through to achieve such a high quality of anger."

"This a piece of a person, Dr. Ladro; a person who died horribly. When people see it, though, they won't think of that. They'll just be amazed at the beautiful shade; will only care about a fucking color. They'll just twitter amongst themselves how expensive these eyes are, and comment that now they can certainly see _why_ people might collect this."

A chill ran through Leorio as he placed the smooth, cool canister on the table. These eyes were someone Kurapika had known. He'd quite literally touched a piece of Kurapika's distant past. It felt like an intrusion, as though Leorio didn't have the full right to grasp the object in his own hands. The eyes belonged to Kurapika. Kurapika was the only one in the entire world who knew the person who'd looked out with these eyes once, who'd perhaps once even locked their gaze with Kurapika's and smiled at him, and who perhaps now haunted Kurapika on the fringes of dreams that weren't truly nightmares, because the dreams didn't frighten Kurapika in any way. Leorio had never known Kurapika to wake up with a start or afraid of anything, ever. But, sometimes he woke up quiet and cold and infinitely more tired than when he'd laid his head down a few short hours before.

"I see your point, and I can't pretend there won't be visitors like how you described, but what about the people we can teach? What of the people we can reach out to? The Kurta are a cautionary tale now of the power of the criminal elements in the world around us. We virtually condone their fate if we let them fade from current memory. We need to stir people up."

Leorio sat back in his seat, planting his elbow on the armrest and pressing his head against his hand. He silently observed the two sets on the table. The brilliant, perfect eyes still moved slightly, bobbing in slow motion, settling into the new positions they'd taken following the momentum of their recent handling. It was a viscous liquid, the odorless preserving agent they were held in. It was professional, top quality, meticulously done. The other set of eyes, not so carefully worked, moved with a bit more freedom. The embalming agent was a thinner recipe and had a faint tinge of golden color. It had been polluted with whatever substance they eyes had been held in previously, as clearly this jar was not their original home, but one they'd been transferred into years ago by the museum preservation experts.

Observing them both critically and knowing both their histories, Leorio couldn't determine which set of eyes constituted the greatest absolute horror.

"There's more to the Kurta than these eyes," said Leorio again, this time more firmly. "Also, I don't think you'll get the money to build such an exhibit, as you'll have to put up a lot of security. The real eyes are worth too much, and your current strategy of keeping quiet is preferable if your goal is to retain the sets you have. The eyes in the main gallery are fakes, right? Reproductions? They would've bleach considerably by now if left exposed to direct light for display."

"Yes. They're in here, too," said Dr. Ladro with a gesture to the corner where he'd pulled the boxes from. "We determined all Kurta eyes should be kept in this safe after the extinction of the clan, given their value."

"The people who steal Kurta eyes won't be impeded by a mere safe. The people who support the murder of an entire clan for money won't hesitate to send a team here to deal with… _all of this_ ," he cast a pointed glance around the small room, "especially if your exhibit ends up having the exact effect you want it to. Especially if you 'stir people up'."

Dr. Ladro was silent, for once, because he knew what Leorio was saying. This was something Dr. Ladro grappled with often on a personal level, overcome by doubt and fear that the reason such steps such as those he intended to take weren't normally undergone was because at this point it was futile. The grip of powerful, avaricious evil was too strong and permeated the fabric of the world too deeply. Instead of inspiring discourse and action, he would only be stirring up a nest of hornets that would swarm and attack the moment he attempted to close in.

"We have to do these things, Mr. Cavaliere. I'd assumed, based on the opinion expressed in your article, that you would support this. I'd assumed you'd felt strongly enough to want to lash out, to retaliate against those responsible for committing such an atrocity, this sick joke pertaining to the literal value of human life in the modern age."

Leorio sighed and rubbed his forehead tiredly. He looked from the eyes to Dr. Ladro, considering them both and this entire situation. At last, he spoke, in a small voice he barely recognized as his own.

"I'll have to talk to my assistant."


	4. Someone's Always Watching

Mr. Cavaliere and his assistant Dr. Topo were currently entering the pale, nondescript door with the sign specifying that they should not enter. Kurapika had learned another way down to the zoology and anthropology collections after two days of wandering the museum from stem to stern, but had followed Leorio's convoluted path after realizing it was a much less conspicuous means to arrive at the same point. Leorio's directional sense hadn't failed him, and he was able to retrace the full route he'd only taken once the morning of the day before.

"There are a few safes in this museum," said Kurapika knowingly as Leorio presented him with the apparently normal office door the safe was concealed behind. "I suspected this."

"Dr. Ladro wouldn't let me see how to get in."

"That makes sense. I'd be surprised otherwise."

"So what do you suppose we're going to do?"

"Celebrate that the most we have to contended with is just a safe," said Kurapika. "It should be a fairly simple extraction, as there's no human element, just video cameras and locks."

"Video cameras?" asked Leorio in alarm. He considered looking around to find them, but was aware that this would make him appear even more suspect to whoever was watching. "What if they see us and get suspicious? Why are you so casual about this?"

"I don't think they suspect us of wanting to steal from a safe we can't even get into. They also saw you come down here with Dr. Ladro. It won't take them much to realized you're telling me about the safe and what you saw in there yesterday. They've seen me down here as well."

"So museum security is well acquainted with you by now, I suppose? You and your snooping around?"

"I don't snoop. I walk with a purpose everywhere I go. You'd be surprised how far that gets you into places you don't necessarily belong. Also, I didn't come down here by myself. I was given a tour by someone on staff who met me in the galleries and offered to show me around. Everything has been going to plan, and I now have a fairly accurate mental map of the premises."

"Oh, so a poor kid is going to be an accessory in this heist?" asked Leorio with a wry smile. He shook his head disapprovingly as he spoke, imagining the poor sap who'd decided to impress Dr. Topo by showing her around the collections after she'd been so coolly abandoned in the exhibit by her mentor and the curator. The guy must've thought he was a real gentleman. Kurapika was a real asshole.

"Let's move. It'll be suspicious if we linger," said Leorio, serious once more because he figured one of them had to give a crap about the cameras watching them. Kurapika apparently didn't.

"Okay, but stop by the jar of the baby with the cyst on its back."

"The one with myelomeningocele."

"Sure. I'm not familiar with the condition, but you can't miss it. It's in the corner, and it's a very large specimen."

"I know it. The hydrocephalus is especially pronounced. I don't think anything was done to treat it."

"What?"

"The baby's got a huge, fluid-filled head."

"That's the one."

Kurapika and Leorio shortly reentered the primary wet storeroom of the anthropology department. Leorio made his way directly to the preserved specimen Kurapika had described and paused before it, observing in quiet appreciation the level of care that had been taken to preserve this child. It could've been considered beautiful to an eye trained in calculating the value of well-preserved human remains. Kurapika made some comment along these lines, noting that he supposed he could also see the important medical value the object might've had, too, but that anyway it was a very fine specimen.

"You'd think dealing closely in the flesh collectors' trade, I'd get used to these kinds of things. Apparently not," said Kurapika. Leorio looked at Kurapika and saw that, though his voice was measured and devoid of emotion, his face was twisted in faint disgust that he didn't trouble himself to conceal from Leorio. "This looks awful. I hate these new solutions and tinted injections on the market that keep the colors so vibrant like life. I'm not going to throw up or swoon or anything, though, so, don't look at me so concerned. I just really don't enjoy looking at these things for too long."

"Well, this is a rather severe form of spina bifida, so it's likely this child died from infection or some sort of complication, if she was treated at all. She ought to be in a medical museum, not here. It's one of the worse cases I've ever seen of this particular birth defeat. It's a shame she wasn't treated. Even in extreme cases, myelomeningocele's not always a death sentence if you treat it."

"Maybe they killed it to put it in the jar. The quality is too good to imply this was a spur of the moment decision. Someone probably offered the parents money."

"I wouldn't be surprised if half the stuff in here wasn't got in some dubious way for the sake of putting it in a jar."

"At least this appears as though it was intended to serve a supposed medical purpose. At least it's…educational. Not like what you told me of Dr. Ladro's plan to sensationalize the gradient of Kurta pain he's got locked away in that safe."

Leorio smiled softly as he heard Kurapika repeat the same colorful expression Leorio had used to describe the sensation of seeing all three jars of eyes lined up neatly on the table in Dr. Ladro's last bid to convince Leorio of the benefit of putting the exact reproductions of those eyes on display. He'd insisted Leorio only needed to see the ascending scale of color depth by comparing the three sets directly. Then, Leorio would fully understand the powerful visual impact they put forth. Leorio would agree the triad of eyes would make the most formidable statement, and that going forth with the exhibit without them would be fruitless.

Leorio had still said no.

"So why are we standing here?" asked Leorio quietly. "Whoever is watching us in the cameras must be awfully intrigued with whatever the hell we're doing."

"I need you to take me in your arms for a moment and kiss me."

Leorio's knees nearly gave out and he forgot to breathe. The shock was so intense it made him feel a bit queasy.

"W-what?" he spat out, layering a bit of anger into his confusion to let Kurapika know he was not in a mood for jokes. "Why the hell…?"

Kurapika sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Everyone here thinks we're sleeping together. No-one believes I'm just your assistant. We need to offer proof that they're right, while also maintaining the illusion that we're trying to hide the nature of our relationship in order to appear professional. Where we're currently standing is at the limits of the view of the room's security cameras, thus giving the impression that we think we can't be seen."

"Why the hell would I do something like that here? Even if you were my girlfriend, I wouldn't do that. Why would I bring you down here for that?"

"The implication would be that the entire reason you brought me down here was for this. Now, I'm going to act embarrassed and try to push you away at first, but then I'm going to change my mind. You're going to stick your hand up my shirt before I finally come back around and push you off completely."

"How am I supposed to get a hand up a buttoned up blouse that's tucked in? You aren't exactly showing much skin, you idiot. You aren't exactly making this easy."

"Do I have to explain to you how to feel up a girl, Leorio? You're a man. You'll figure it out."

"You're a man, too, Kurapika, so I fucking _dare you_ to try to tell me how to feel up a girl, as you also being a man apparently qualifies you as an expert, too. Funny thing is, I don't think you really know. And I don't like you insinuating that I would be the kind of guy who knows about cornering girls in creepy storage rooms and feeling them up."

"Mr. Cavaliere is that kind of guy."

"Fuck Mr. Cavaliere."

"I didn't realize this sort of thing would be so difficult. Shit."

"Me neither. Fuck you."

"It's not like we haven't done this kind of thing before."

The part of Leorio's brain in active thought froze, stopping all mental processes as it flashed back, unwillingly, to the very specific event Kurapika was referring to. He took a deep breath and turned to face Kurapika at last. Kurapika inclined slightly in the opposite direction at the abruptness of Leorio's turn and the sternness of his expression.

"I don't like how casual you are about such things," said Leorio. "Knowing how this goes between us, you still ask me so matter-of-factly to push you up against a wall and kiss you with lecherous intent? Have you not thought this through? This can go wrong on so many levels."

"Just play along. This is important for my plan, or I wouldn't suggest it. It's also the only way we leave this storeroom without anyone suspecting what we're really interested in is what's in that safe."

"I already know I'm not going to win this argument, but as a closing statement I'd just like to say to you that you're an asshole," said Leorio with a frown. "Let's just get it over with. You're right about how suspicious we look. I fucking hate that you're right."

This was what passed for warning before Leorio spun Kurapika to face him fully and pressed Kurapika into the wall that was now at Kurapika's back. He held Kurapika in place by his narrow, boney shoulders, though he knew it wasn't necessary, as Kurapika wouldn't go anywhere. He kissed him without restraint, knowing it wouldn't look like he wanted this if he held back out of spite. It wasn't hard to want to kiss Kurapika anyway. It was perhaps harder on Kurapika's side, as Kurapika had to feign to resist the first advance.

Kurapika muttered some sort of half-hearted but requisite protest in parts against Leorio's lips and the rough, bristly skin of Leorio's chin. Leorio smirked as Kurapika made a show of looking around like he was legitimately worried they'd get caught. Clearly, Kurapika had studied the role of the surface ingénue assistant giving in to the insistence of her cad of a mentor. Leorio was barely able to continue, as he found the whole thing ridiculous, but then Kurapika began to kiss him back. Leorio nearly forgot himself as his eyes slipped shut and the image of the girl with Kurapika's face and the ridiculous curly wig disappeared. With his eyes shut and his ears open, it was only Kurapika shifting and trembling beneath his roving hands.

"So how long until you melt into my embrace and I sweep you off your feet dramatically?" asked Leorio as he paused with his forehead pressed against Kurapika's. "No point leaving it to chance."

"Shut up and follow what I said," grumbled Kurapika, but there was less air in his voice. The gulp that followed was audible in the silence of the empty room full of jars and dead things watching.

"So now's the part where I start getting handsy?" asked Leorio with a drum of his fingers on Kurapika's body for emphasis.

"Sure," said Kurapika softly, but looked away as he spoke.

Leorio decided not to go easy on Kurapika, because Leorio had a bad habit of being vindictive and petty. It came from the same place inside him that also made him quick-tempered and rash to a fault. Therefore, instead of bringing his hand to Kurapika's waist to figure out the button situation, he brought his hand lower, until the back of his knuckles brushed the inner side of Kurapika's left knee. He opened his hand and slid the tips of his long fingers up beneath the hem of Kurapika's poorly chosen skirt.

"Leorio, what are—?"

"It won't look believable if you don't squirm a little, and your non-existent breasts aren't going to get the right reaction. Also, you have way too many clothes on up top."

Leorio's hand inched high enough to start bringing the skirt up with it as he wrapped his grip around Kurapika's thigh. Kurapika, eyes widening in alarm, pushed Leorio away from him forcefully. He swore and pulled the skirt back down as he staggered away.

"Enough of that!" said Kurapika, legitimately flustered as he increased the distance between him and Leorio.

"You never said below the belt was off limits."

"I didn't think I'd need to tell you all the reasons why actually trying to arouse me would be a bad idea, either, so _shit_. That would be really hard to explain if anyone saw that."

"I didn't think there was any risk. You seemed so cool and under control."

Kurapika frowned at Leorio's sarcasm to let him know it wasn't appreciated. Leorio shrugged in answer. Kurapika turned to leave, to storm off as he ought to, and not one iota of it was him really acting. He only made it a few steps before he felt arms wrap around him from behind and pull him back.

"Hey, so I apparently dragged you all the way down here for an intimate moment, so I'd probably at least give it another shot," said Leorio softly into Kurapika's ear. "Because I'm an asshole or whatever. What pretense will I have to isolate you all the way down here later? This is clearly my last chance to coerce you into some sexual act in such erotic and stimulating surroundings as these…dead babies and diseased limbs and stuff."

Kurapika sighed in annoyance as Leorio kissed the side of his neck once before releasing him without a tussle.

"Okay, now we're done," said Kurapika, continuing on his way to the door. "This is more than enough. _Thank you_."

The clipped and formal way Kurapika spat out his thanks to Leorio for so generously going above and beyond what had been asked from him caused Leorio to break out into a mischievous grin and then outright laughter. He tipped an imaginary hat to Kurapika before turning to leave the room using the opposite door, through the dry storage, and out by the zoology department.


	5. Condolences and a Drink

Leorio noticed something quite altered in Dr. Ladro's tone and manner of relating to him. They'd been most of the morning together with Kurapika reviewing the sources Dr. Ladro had so far been able to acquire copies of from various institutions. Dr. Ladro was under no impression that Leorio and Kurapika ought to translate everything themselves, but he did utilized Kurapika's vast knowledge to help compile a navigable list stating what sort of information could be found in each piece of new material. Leorio, functioning as little more than a glorified secretary, typed the work out, while Dr. Ladro delegated the translations to colleagues and assistant researchers.

After lunch had passed in weary silence, Kurapika excused himself to take a walk around the galleries for a break. He was deliberate in choosing not to invite either Leorio or Dr. Ladro to join him. Once he was gone, Dr. Ladro shot Leorio a very concerned look across the spacious office.

"…What?" asked Leorio, hoping the conversation they were about to have wasn't going to be the conversation he already knew it would be. "What's wrong?"

"It's not my place to judge or meddle, but I feel you and I have reached a particular level of confidence in these past few days that merits a small intrusion on my part into something you might consider to be a personal matter between you…and your assistant."

Leorio put on an act of becoming suddenly defensive. "Dr. Topo has been an invaluable resource in my research of the Kurta. I owe her tremendously for her contributions to my field of study. We both owe her. Without her, this work would be impossible."

"This isn't about her academic output, which is truly impressive," said Dr. Ladro in a placating tone as he came over to the desk where Leorio sat and pulled up a chair. He edged the chair alongside Leorio until they were quite close and he could whisper the next words. "This concerns matters that are unrelated to research. It's fairly obvious you volunteered yourself to bring her here as sort of a chaperone in prelude to her studies at the university for reasons not entirely related to helping her accustom herself to the city."

"What are you implying?"

Dr. Ladro tutted lightly. "Don't play as if you're dense as to the nature of what I've just said. It should be obvious to you that I already know what I'm saying is fact, and therefore it won't serve you to feign such defensive ignorance. You haven't been as clandestine in your activities with her as you seem to think. It's already being gossiped about amongst the staff. I treated it as mere rumor and speculation originally—gave you the benefit of the doubt in a way—though I could tell as well as anyone when I first saw the two of you together that something had occurred between you and Lina in the past. It was obvious in the way Lina carried herself around you, and in the depth of familiarity you both share."

"Get to the point."

"You're fond of Lina, and I want to warn you to be careful. She is young. She might play coy, but she is working on other men on the staff already."

"Working on them?"

"You know what I mean, Mr. Cavaliere."

Leorio kept his face hard, set in an expression without emotion that expressed perfectly every emotion he was implied to be feeling. He consciously decided to clench his jaw so that his supposed inner turmoil might have an outlet to make itself evident without having to betray a word. He didn't look at Dr. Ladro once, but stared resolutely out the window, as though consumed in a flurry of agitated thought.

Dr. Ladro sighed and pat Leorio briefly on the back in sympathy, even offering a firm squeeze of the shoulder, before he completely removed his arm and edged his chair back to give Leorio some space.

"It's a shame," said Dr. Ladro heavily as he stood and went back to his desk. "Take some time to process it. Do you smoke? Would you like a cigarette? Or perhaps…a drink?"

"The drink," said Leorio. "Whatever you have. Neat."

"Certainly," said Dr. Ladro. He opened his desk drawer, producing a flask. He poured out two mugs of cold coffee and rinsed them in the strange little sink in the corner of the room. A moment later he was back in the seat near Leorio, though this time not so close. He held out one of the freshly washed mugs. Leorio took it in a stifled, distracted movement and kept it aloft as Dr. Ladro poured the drink. He waited for Dr. Ladro to pour his own. Then, he finally looked at Dr. Ladro, who offered him a solemn nod in return. They briefly clinked the lips of the mugs together with a ceramic scratch and drank.

Dr. Ladro took a thoughtful, slow sip. Leorio, in perfect character, shot his back and winced at the burn of the alcohol. He held the mug out once more for a second round. Dr. Ladro generously complied. Leorio had two more in total before extinguishing the contents of the small flask.


	6. Shut Up and Let Me Kiss You

"Well everyone at the museum knows you're cuckolding me," said Leorio as he staggered into the apartment Kurapika had invited him to share after the hotel included with Leorio's travel deal had run out. Leorio had never asked where the money came from that Kurapika used to pay for the very fine and swanky rooms he inhabited, totally alone. Kurapika never brought it up.

"Have you been drinking?" asked Kurapika. He barely glanced up from the book opened on the table before him, even as Leorio nearly collapsed over an ottoman while crossing the open sitting room of the suite.

"Dr. Ladro and I went out. His first name is Maltios. My first name, if you're curious, I've decided is Siero. The smartest kid in my middle school class was named Siero. He was a dick. He'd probably fuck a female protégé in an empty storeroom, to be totally honest. I found it fitting."

Kurapika yawned and adjusted the position of the knuckles digging into the flesh of his cheek as he read. Leorio echoed Kurapika's yawn as he sat heavily onto a chair across the table. He pulled the nearest book towards him, opening it to a marked page and squinting down.

"You're useless studying, Leorio. Just go to bed," said Kurapika as he watched Leorio struggle to get through the page.

"I'm supposed to have the festival calendar down by tomorrow. If I don't know the festival calendar, Maltios will know something is up."

"Dr. Ladro will just think you're hungover. And he'll be right."

"A hangover is no excuse for completely blanking on something I'm supposed to have dedicated my life to and know by heart. Blackouts only apply to the night you got wrecked, not whole pieces of the years preceding it."

"Just don't talk at all tomorrow. Just hold your head and moan. You don't even have to put on an act. Just be your regular, overindulged self."

"But that will mean you'll have to speak more than three words to Dr. Ladro, and he's not going to have any patience for you. I'm afraid acting pissed at you comes way too naturally for me, so he probably despises you now for everything you've supposedly done. So like, good luck with that."

"You've spent the whole evening drinking and complaining about me, I presume."

"And hitting on women. Mostly hitting on women. The goal was to spend the night not talking about you, actually. Get over yourself."

"Any luck with the women?"

"Fuck yes. I got seven numbers, and one woman let me feel her breasts after Maltios told her how small yours were. That woman said she'd help me forget your tiny breasts with hers and gave me five whole minutes. It was a good night."

"And yet you threw a fit when I told you to put your hand under my shirt in the storeroom yesterday. You're such a fucking hypocrite, Leorio."

"Hey, she offered. I don't go around feeling up people who don't give me permission to do so. What you asked me to do was to put on a show of overstepping my bounds and forcing myself on you. I totally have a problem with that kind of thing."

"You weren't overstepping your bounds. It was implied you and Lina had already been sleeping together."

"Doesn't mean Lina is automatically going to want to have sex in a storeroom. Doesn't mean I wouldn't ask first instead of trying to just make her go along."

Kurapika shook his head in disbelief, looking over at Leorio with a bemused grin. "Wow. I'm surprise you've turned out to be such a gentleman, Leorio."

"I'm surprised you seem to be such an asshole," Leorio fired back immediately before stifling another yawn. "Though I guess it's because you have such little experience with normal people in general. You just know about us from your books. We aren't even real to you."

Kurapika grimaced and looked back down at his book, ironically retreating from the conversation into the arms of the very thing he was being criticized for embracing more firmly than he embraced reality. Leorio reached over and splayed the fingers of his large hand across the page Kurapika was on, sundering it from Kurapika's view. Kurapika sighed in annoyance and looked up again, the faint light of ready defiance in his eyes against whatever it was Leorio was going to tell him he ought to be doing instead of reading.

"Are you okay? There's not been any problem with your side of things at the museum? Maltios didn't get into detail about what he's seen or heard about Lina, but if there's anything that…I don't know, hasn't gone according to plan…. Like, you can tell me so I can make a list of people to punch in the face when all this is over."

"What the hell are you talking about? I'm not an actual girl, Leorio. I don't need a knight to protect me. Nothing happens. I don't let anyone near me. If they touch me it'll only blow my cover. Why are you even worried about that?"

"I was just curious if someone in particular put it in your head that men typically go around coercing women into compromising positions in storerooms."

"Let it go, Leorio. It's a common trope in various forms of media entertainment. I chose it for that precise reason. People immediately recognize that sort of thing, so it's a quick shorthand for revealing to people Mr. Cavaliere and Lina's level of intimacy without actually telling them."

"Ah, yes. And you're an expert on everything you've gleaned from our media about our culture. You've got us all figured out, haven't you?"

"You've had a lot to drink, Leorio."

"According to the script, that's because I just found out the woman I love, who I like to pin against walls next to the most egregious case of spina bifida I've ever seen in a jar, is flirting with museum staff while I struggle and strive to advance the greater knowledge the world has of her specialty field. I'm supposed to be heartbroken. I'm doing her life's work for her for some fucking reason, and she's running around with strange men."

"It doesn't seem like it was all that hard for you to play the getting stupidly drunk part to a tee."

"It _was_ hard. I normally drink to have fun, not to drown misery. I lied and told Maltios that I'm a happy drunk. I think it made him feel even worse for me."

"You've found a true friend in Dr. Ladro."

"I got the impression he was trying to make up for something. He hit on you, too, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Well, fuck."

The conversation lapsed into silence with Leorio's lack of further input. Kurapika took this as an invitation to resume reading and pushed Leorio's hand off the page where it still lay. Leorio pulled back obediently. His mind was tangled in thoughts he couldn't unravel but desperately needed to voice. It was hard to grasp anything concrete, however. The alcohol had inundated his mind, and his thoughts bobbed and floated about on the surface, carried just out of reach by a current that propelled them onwards every time Leorio stretched out his hand.

"You need to calm down, Kurapika," said Leorio. "You're going to get in real trouble if you keep this up. People are more complicated than the condensed versions you observe and read about. Real, actual people can surprise you, and it's not always a good surprise. No matter how much you figure out about human nature, about every culture you'll ever encounter, nothing about a person is set in stone. You might know someone almost as well as they know themselves, but at the end of the day, you aren't the one deciding their actions. There's always that one independent variable you can't fully control. We aren't puppets. Don't get cocky."

"Human nature is still fairly predictable," said Kurapika with a shrug. He rested his finger on the page so he wouldn't lose his place. "And I don't need to know anyone perfectly. I don't imagine I do, either. I only need to know the system around a person well enough to predict that person's next move. And when it comes to relationships between women and the men who don't think very much of women, predicting what's going to happen next isn't all that complicated. Men like those I interact with at the museum as Lina are blindly committed to roles and rules, and it's stupid how easy that is to use. You can talk up and down about people being individuals and capable of surprising me, but most people definitely like to follow rules and to have the direction of their lives already prescribed for them."

"But the fact you think you're better than us, that you think—"

"Do you know what I'm going to do after I find all the Kurta eyes? If I survive and defeat all of my enemies in prefect retribution for their crimes? Do you have any idea?"

"No."

"Neither do I. So, you see, I'm not better than anyone. _I'm worse_. I'm on a path that, if everything goes according to plan, exactly how I tell myself I want it to, I arrive nowhere. My present goals are so overwhelmingly difficult that I don't even let myself dwell on what I'll do after."

Leorio closed the book in his hands and laid it back on the table.

"We've already agreed what you'll do after."

"I don't believe it'll happen. I don't believe I'll survive all of my goals."

"You'll stay with me after."

"If…."

" _You_ _will_."

"Sure, Leorio."

Leorio sighed and took up his teashades from a side table where they rested within reach. It was well past nightfall and the room was dim, but he put the teashades on automatically. He felt better when all the pieces that made him up in full were in their proper place. It gave him a sense of control and stability that was lacking in these days of Kurta eyes and Kurapika's incessant proximity. Leorio was always on the verge of something stupid, of going back on his word when he'd already promised to Kurapika that he'd leave Kurapika's own business to him. Of all the things he questioned Kurapika on, he wasn't supposed to question him about his quest for revenge. He wasn't allowed to shed doubt on it, because Kurapika would lose his patience with Leorio long before he'd ever listen to him.

Leorio had been drinking, however, so he figured he had a bit of leeway in what he could say, at least at this precise moment. Kurapika would take that into account. Kurapika knew better than to give a drunken man too much of a hard time.

"I hope you wake up and see that altering your goals isn't the same as giving up. It isn't weakness, and it isn't betrayal," said Leorio. His eyes had sleepily shut themselves at some point, and it was like speaking to a timorous void that existed on the other side of his eyelids. He found he preferred this and kept his eyes closed. It made the words easier. Kurapika was so quiet it was like Kurapika wasn't even there.

"But, if you never let that stuff go, then I hope you succeed," said Leorio in continuation. "Because I hope your life has a chance to become more than the narrow path you've confined it to. Life is much bigger than you allow yourself to think. There's a lot more to live for."

"You hope so," said Kurapika because Kurapika was a smartass. "Because not even you believe it's likely."

"Not always, no."

Slowly, Leorio opened his eyes and lifted himself from the chair. He waved a vague goodbye to Kurapika before he turned towards the bedroom. Kurapika nodded and went back to reading. There was only one bedroom in the suite, but Kurapika never joined Leorio in the bed. Kurapika stayed up much later and slept on the couch so as not to disturb Leorio's slumber. Leorio had told him this wasn't necessary, like he didn't know the real reason Kurapika preferred to maintain a physical measure of distance between them in addition to the emotional distance that was surprisingly a lot harder to keep.

"Hey. Let me kiss you," said Leorio from the doorway.

"Affection doesn't ever change my mind. You'll get worked up for nothing."

"Please."

"Go to sleep."

"Goodnight, then."

Leorio turned and continued the rest of the way into the bedroom. Kurapika smiled softly down at the book he wasn't exactly reading as he heard Leorio literally collapse into the bed. There was a loud creak and rustle of blankets against the clothes Leorio was still wearing. A small chuckle escaped Kurapika, but there was also the slight pressure at the inside corners of his eyes and at the back of his throat that suggested he might also cry.

Tiredly, Kurapika swept his hand over his face and took a deep breath to collect himself. The black rectangle of the doorway to the bedroom caught his eye and held it. The hand dropped from his face, limp and exhausted. He couldn't decide if he ought to laugh at what an idiot he was or despair over it, but anyway, he pushed back the chair and stood. In a moment, he lay tightly embraced in the bed besides Leorio, holding Leorio's face in his hands and kissing him softly as they both drifted to sleep.


	7. Irrevocably Intertwined

"Where is your assistant?" asked Dr. Ladro after an hour had passed and Kurapika still hadn't shown. "I need her to run off these pages. Also, we haven't got coffee. Has she been in at all this morning?"

"I haven't seen her," said Leorio tersely. He was tired, obviously, from his hangover, but he also tried to make it seem as if he were feeling rather sullen as well. Dr. Ladro cast him a knowing look, which was what Dr. Ladro was best at. He'd been hovering around the margins of an open discussion about the events of the day before, unable to decide if he needed to be familiar and close, or if he needed to provide Leorio was a wide berth.

"I thought I saw her in the entrance earlier."

"I don't care."

Dr. Ladro took the obvious hint and steered away from the subject. He announced he'd dispatch one of his own assistants for the coffee and swiftly departed to handle the copies himself.

As Dr. Ladro's footsteps disappeared down the hall, Leorio grinned. He almost regretted it, as the movement of his eyes aggravated his pulsing headache. Leorio decided the recollection of waking up to the sensation of Kurapika pressed against him was worth it the pain, though. He'd woken up happy, although he knew it was a transitory thing and utterly worthless. It'd been exceedingly difficult to leave Kurapika sleeping there and get dressed to meet Dr. Ladro at the museum.

"Dr. Ladro isn't here?"

Leorio twisted himself around to look at the door where Kurapika had just entered with a tray of coffee. Leorio was impressed to see Kurapika had realized they'd have no coffee of Lina didn't literally bring it to them. It was pathetic.

"He stepped out for a few minutes to run copies or something."

"Don't let him leave this hall for the rest of the morning."

Leorio frowned and stood to take the cup of coffee that Kurapika, still committed to the role of the surprisingly dutiful Lina (especially considering her double-crossing ways that were now known to Mr. Cavaliere), poured for him.

"Why?"

"Just keep him here."

"Tell me why."

"I've got a chance…."

Leorio didn't press Kurapika to say more. He'd understood the situation the moment Kurapika had asked him to keep Dr. Ladro close, as if Dr. Ladro had any real reason to leave Mr. Cavaliere's company. The warning hadn't been totally necessary, and Leorio saw through it.

"Is there anything else I need to do?"

"No."

"Wait for me at the hotel after."

"I can't promise that."

"Try."

"Sure."

Kurapika reached the fill Dr. Ladro's cup for when Dr. Ladro returned, but Leorio waved him off, insisting that Dr. Ladro wasn't going to know the difference if Leorio poured it, and that Kurapika should go. Dr. Ladro might give Lina a lot of work out of spite if he saw her. Kurapika agreed and hastily left. Leorio poured the remaining coffee and took a seat at the table to begin drinking his own.

"Stron was quick with the coffee," said Dr. Ladro in surprise as he entered the room. "That's odd. Did Stron bring this?"

"I didn't see," said Leorio. "I didn't look. I was reading over a file at the desk."

Dr. Ladro shrugged and took the coffee that had been poured for him. Leorio had left two full cups there, implying that whoever had left the coffee had assumed Dr. Topo was in.

A few minutes later, Stron arrived bearing a tray, confusion painted across his face when the noticed the first tray already there. Leorio and Dr. Ladro both shrugged at him. Dr. Ladro offered him Lina's cup and asked him to stay and help out, since Mr. Cavaliere's assistant was missing. Stron looked over to Leorio with some apprehension at the indirect reference to Dr. Topo. Leorio suspected rightly that Stron had heard the rumors about her. Leorio was surprised to find himself feeling a twinge of legitimate embarrassment over it, and he took up his coffee for another sip with increased vigor, least he be forced to say anything whatsoever and reveal in his tone how flustered he was.

There wasn't exactly a timeline for the heist. Leorio had no way of knowing when the theft would be completed, or when someone would find out that the Kurta eyes had been stolen. He hoped Kurapika didn't get into much trouble. He'd noticed Kurapika had worn flat shoes today instead of heels, which was a good choice, as it would allow him move more quickly and with a softer step. As long as Kurapika got out of the museum before the alarm was raised, the eyes were his. They'd never catch him once he was out. Kurapika knew how to disappear far too well.

"Where's you assistant today, Mr. Cavaliere?" asked Stron after Dr. Ladro had gone for a bathroom break.

"No idea," said Leorio. He didn't like Stron's sudden forwardness almost immediately after Dr. Ladro had stepped out.

"Ah, well, perhaps she's just running la—"

There was piercing sound and a flash like lightening that stunned both Leorio and Stron into silence. Stron dropped his cup into the coffee tray, where it spilled and shattered into large shards that settled with a hollow clink. Leorio, no better than the assistant, felt the file he was holding slip from his hands and down his lap. He caught it against his legs, but half the contents spilled out and skidded across the floor. He looked to Stron who was looking to the doorway.

"What the hell?"

"It's a theft alarm," said Stron. He grabbed Leorio by the arm to hold him back as Leorio bounded for the door. "Someone's stolen something from the vaults. It means stay where you are, there's an armed robbery."

"I can't just stay here! What if—"

"Just wait until they send professionals from the security company. Don't go sticking your neck out," said Stron as he continued to keep Leorio back. Leorio reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife, which caused Stron to cry out in alarm. "Shit. Like, pretty sure a knife won't be enough, Mr. Cavaliere. Some of these people, you can't even shoot them with guns, and we don't even have guns. What good will a knife do?"

"What?"

"We can't do anything if the thieves have weird skills. Thieves these days aren't normal, okay? There was a museum heist in Sinhelki, in the middle of the freaking day. All the guards and people who got in the way had like exploded lungs or something. Do you want that kind of shit to happen to you?"

Gradually, it began to dawn on Leorio that the reason Stron was so immensely frightened and yet incredibly imprecise in describing his fear was because Stron had no idea what Nen was. To Stron, killing someone with Nen was creepy, magical death. This dangerous, violent side of Nen was the one the general public was the most familiar with, because its appearance in crimes made the biggest news stories.

"I'm going to see that Dr. Ladro is safe," said Leorio, brushing Stron's hand away. Stron released him with some reluctance. "You stay here."

Stron was obedient. The determined look in Leorio's eyes, as well as the knife in his hand, made it fairly evident that argument had no place between them. Hesitantly, Stron began to clean up the spilled coffee. He had no idea what else he was supposed to do as the alarm still shrieked in the hall.

Leorio cursed at himself for letting Dr. Ladro out of his sight. He'd promised Kurapika to keep him out of the way, which meant that Kurapika knew Dr. Ladro's first instinct would be to run to his precious eyes. Because that was the worst thing, wasn't it? The Kurta eyes had a strange, bewitching quality that made their second owners covetous and emotionally unstable. Something so beautiful, that looked right back into you with its own piercing, glowing gaze, drove the susceptible somewhat mad. The eyes were stunning. They inspired muted awe. Even Leorio saw their beauty while he also noted their horror. When Dr. Ladro has said it, that comment, "when you see something like this, you perhaps, finally, understand a little… _why_ ," a part of Leorio that Leorio couldn't suppress had answered immediately in echo inside of him, "yes, yes you can".

Dr. Ladro wasn't in any of the bathrooms, and Leorio wasn't surprised. Without any deliberation, Leorio turned to the dark, concealed stairway. He wound his way utterly alone down cramped halls and past shut away collections, all the way to the pale door that told him once more, uselessly, that he wasn't permitted to enter without authorization.

Leorio didn't reach the wet storage before he found Dr. Ladro. He didn't even make it to the safe where the eyes were held. In the room of plasticized, skinless human sculptures, Dr. Ladro lay on the floor, already dead. He'd been shot five times. It had been with bullets, not with Nen.

Leorio…honestly didn't know if Kurapika'd brought a gun with him or not. He hoped that it hadn't been Kurapika who'd done this.

Without a single step further, Leorio stooped down and sat on the floor beside Dr. Ladro's body. It'd be much easier to explain what he was doing down here if he stopped now at the sight of the dead curator. Whoever was watching could see on the camera that he went no further than this room, that the shock had overcome him, and he'd been unable to continue.

It probably wasn't the greatest idea, considering how inflammable the contents of this room and its adjoining brethren were, but Leorio removed a half empty pack of cigarettes from his inside vest pocket. He plucked one out delicately at random and lit it, breathing in the sharp, hot smoke with a long, lingering draw. Wearily, he rested his head and upper arms over his bent knees and stared into the middle distance. He figured this pose, so tired and poetic, was the perfect image of a man dejected, who'd been overwhelmed by the circumstances.

In the dead stillness of the storerooms, Leorio supposed he was indeed overwhelmed on some level. His mind was so blank that light seemed to pass though unimpeded across the space behind his eyes. Kurapika, the little shit who knew everything, had been right about the need to keep an eye on Dr. Ladro. Big surprise. He hadn't just been stopping by with the tray of coffee to bid Leorio a veiled goodbye. Kurapika never would've wasted that kind of time for the sake of sentimentality.

With only his medical knowledge to go on, Leorio contemplated which parts of Dr. Ladro might be the most valuable. He wondered if Dr. Ladro, a budding collector of human flesh in his own research-sanctioned right, had signed off to donate any of his organs when he died. Would it be more ironic if he had, or more ironic if he hadn't? Or was it a moot point because he'd been shot four times in the torso and once just behind the left ear? His insides were probably all torn up. There wasn't much to salvage except maybe a cornea.

The En Leorio was projecting detected the coming of the police and security personnel long before they arrived. With a sigh, he extinguished the cigarette between his feet and waited for the door to be flung open and people to start yelling for him to put up his hands.


	8. The Last Anyone Ever Saw of Her

As expected, Mr. Cavaliere wasn't seriously suspected in the theft of the Kurta eyes. He was reprimanded for having been foolhardy enough to go off in search of Dr. Ladro, but no-one imagined he'd had anything to do with the heist. An officer warned Leorio that what happened to Dr. Ladro might've happened to him of he'd arrived just two minutes earlier. The thief wouldn't have hesitated. The thief had shot Dr. Ladro twice and then finished him off when he was incapacitated on the ground. Just because the thief had wanted to, supposedly. Just because Dr. Ladro was lying there and couldn't get away.

Murder and Kurta eyes, it seemed, were irrevocably intertwined.

The murdering thief had been apprehended. At the moment Leorio had been smoking his cigarette and tallying up the price of human organs, security agents had honed in on the perpetrator and captured him. He'd been taken into custody alive, and two of the three sets of eyes had been recovered. The third set of eyes he'd been carrying had been fakes. Whoever had stolen the authentic set was still at large.

Leorio hadn't known the murdering thief when he'd been show the man's picture. They told Leorio that the man was a corrupt security guard who'd taken advantage of the vault being opened to steal the eyes for himself.

Why had the vault been open? Apparently a woman named Dr. Lina Topo and one of the authorized research staff had arrange to meet there for a rendezvous. Dr. Topo was the primary suspect for the theft of the most expensive set of eyes. The man she'd met with had been found unconscious in the safe, on the floor with the cast aside boxes that had contained the eyes. He didn't remember anything of what had transpired next. He never saw the armed assailant that held Dr. Topo at gunpoint and took the eyes from her.

Leorio used the Hunter website to look up the file of the investigation when he get back to the hotel later in the evening when the police had let him go. It'd cost him a lot of money, as the information was still fresh, and nosing into active police investigations was frowned upon, though occasionally necessary for a Pro Hunter.

Kurapika had split his loses and handed over the older eyes, the ones that weren't directly part of his personal quest for vengeance. It probably hadn't been an easy choice, but in the end it'd reduced his risk. He hadn't needed to use his Nen, which might've given away his identity to the knowing observer. It'd also allowed him to get away while the other thief was pursued.

The camera from inside the safe had only had a limited view of the proceedings. The eyes had been taken down and shown to Kurapika while the man with him made large, boastful gestures. Kurapika had swiftly knocked him unconscious with a single blow, which caused the investigators to suspect that Dr. Topo was a professional who'd been hired to infiltrate the museum. The precision with which she acted was too neat, too practiced and quick.

Instead of attempting to successfully carry three large jars of eyes out of the museum with him, Kurapika had focused on making sure he got out with the ones he truly wanted. There was only time to guarantee the extraction of the one set. For this operation, he'd had a false pair of eyes ready in a vial just large enough to contain them. With the deftness of a surgeon, he'd opened the jar and removed the real eyes from their solution with a set of previously wrapped, sterilized prongs. He placed the true eyes in the vial and sealed it before depositing the fakes in their place and closing the jar once more.

"You asshole," muttered Leorio at the screen as he watched Lina/Kurapika place the jars into an oversized purse and then collect the keys where the man who'd brought him into the safe had dropped them. Not a single movement was wasted, as though Kurapika were some kind of robot performing a highly optimized sequence of commands. He crossed the room with the purse slung over his shoulder and opened the door to leave. Then, before he'd even made it across the threshold, a stranger's hand reached out to grab at the bag and pull Kurapika the rest of the way through with it. On its own, the door to the safe swung shut.


	9. All That Comes After

It wasn't a surprise to Leorio when Kurapika failed to return to the hotel. Kurapika was long gone already, secreting the newly acquired eyes away to wherever it was he kept them, to do whatever it was he did with them. Leorio didn't mull over it too much. It was Kurapika's business, not Leorio's. Kurapika had full right to do whatever he wished with his clansmen's eyes.

Someone Leorio didn't know arrived the next morning to collect Kurapika's things from the hotel and present Leorio with a ticket for a flight home. Leorio asked them if the knew anything about Kurapika, but the person claimed to have no idea who Kurapika was. They'd been hired by an unnamed client to close the reservation, move out the rooms, and give Leorio his ticket. Complete discretion was the name of the game, as the sorts of clients who needed to quickly abandoned a residence and then have the lose ends wrapped up in an inconspicuous manner weren't the sorts of clients you ever knowingly met face-to-face. Even Leorio could've been the client, honestly. It didn't really matter.

Leorio packed his bag as well, including the "academic" clothes Kurapika had forced on him, and went to the airport to catch his evening flight. There was no other option. When Leorio went to check in for the flight, he noted with an amused smile that there was an account in his name with credit on it so he could eat something in the airship café. Kurapika had known Leorio would be too cheap to eat until he got home. Kurapika apparently knew everything.

As was his habit when he was idle, Leorio spent the time waiting for his flight checking the newest public job postings on the Hunter website. He liked to see if there was anything easy he could manage for a few extra bucks, since people were willing to pay handsomely for any Hunter provided service, no matter how mundane. He saw there was already a request for a Hunter security team at the Susina Museum of Natural History to guard against robberies. Any black market dealers who'd been watching the museum might try to move up their heist timelines now that the museum had lost one set of Kurta eyes. Any smart criminal would act soon, since stealing the eyes would become infinitely more difficult once Pro Hunters got involved.

Soon, Leorio's browsing was reduced to just clicking around the web dully with no true objective. His phone began to hum in his pocket, and he pulled it out in a hurry, nearly dropping it to the floor. He didn't know the number, but hoped he might know who it was. His hands felt strangely cold and uncoordinated as he fumbled to press the button to answer.

"H-hello?"

"It's regrettable what happened to Dr. Ladro," said Kurapika.

"Uh, wow. You've actually called me," said Leorio in amazement. He laughed a little, but then remembered Dr. Ladro's prone form in a puddle of blood on the storeroom floor, his brains splattered out a good distance ahead of him with the explosive exit of the bullet that had gone through his skull. "Uh, but yeah, I'm sorry about that. He was in the bathroom when the alarms when off."

"It couldn't be helped. Following him every time he went to the bathroom would've been suspicious. You had no way of knowing."

"I should've kept a better eye on him."

"You did your best. He knew it wasn't safe to run down to the vaults during a robbery. It's his own fault, not yours."

"But you asked me to keep him upstairs."

"I was hoping he'd stay out of trouble. I know he wasn't perfect in his vision for the exhibit he wanted to do, but he had the best intentions. It's uncertain how long the museum will continue its research on the Kurta now that he's dead."

"Oh, yeah. I didn't consider that. Now I feel worse. They still have all that stuff we put together, though. They can at least finish that. They'll probably finish it and claim it's to honor his memory or whatever, say his work didn't die with him. Or they can stick him in a jar and put him on display in memory of his sacrifice."

There wasn't an immediate response to this rather lack, bitter joke. Then, Kurapika sighed sadly, which surprised Leorio, as Kurapika had been equally, if not more, callous when talking about Dr. Ladro than Leorio before now.

"Dr. Ladro wasn't perfect, but he _was_ an expert on the Kurta, Leorio. He visited our village when I was six years old and lived there for nearly a year."

"Wait, what? You _knew_ him?"

"Not by name. I recognized him when I saw him at the museum the first time I went. That's another reason why I had to involve you."

"Did you think he would recognize you from when you were six?"

"No. Of course not. I just knew I wouldn't be able to keep up the harsh façade around him. I'd have wanted to encourage and help him, even if his ideas were imperfect. It would've been a distraction, and meanwhile someone else could've gotten the items I wanted."

"Fuck."

Leorio sat back weakly in his chair and turned off the computer. It was hard, suddenly discovering he was indirectly responsible for the loss of yet another link to Kurapika's distant past. Kurapika was perhaps partly responsible for it as well, but he'd gone through the trouble of putting Dr. Ladro in Leorio's care. Leorio had let him down.

"I can't even express how incredibly sorry—" Leorio began, meaning every word more than he ever had in his entire life, but Kurapika interrupted him.

"Don't worry about it, Leorio. If I'd run into Dr. Ladro downstairs, I would've had to attack him myself, because he'd have realized the items were fakes immediately. But, I didn't really consider that there was a threat to his life when I told you to keep an eye on him. I just didn't want to have to attack him. Honestly, I almost didn't even tell you to watch him for me."

"So you didn't know the guard was going to steal the ey—items from you?"

"No. Or well, I mean, I _did_ consider someone might take advantage of the theft, as the items are extremely valuable and have an eager market where you can convert them to a profit almost immediately. I was prepared to hand the two older sets over if someone detained me. There simply wasn't time to take them all. I also don't have any fake ones that look like those anyway. Those sets are truly unique cases. That will make them easy to find later once they're stolen and sold on the market."

"I guess you have a point there...."

"Yeah. But anyway, Leorio, I just called because I wanted to apologize."

"For what? Everything seems to have gone off without a hitch. You have what you came for. It seems everything has gone well, except that someone died. But like you said, he knew better. It's not your fault."

"No, not that. I'm sorry I didn't come see you."

Leorio hesitated. He swallowed nervously. He nodded as if Kurapika could see him while his heart jumped into his throat. It occurred to him that this was a phone call, and he would need to say something. So, he tried to divert the welling of emotion by sounding casual, sensible, and not like someone who'd just been hit in the gut of his feelings because Kurapika had just said something almost sentimental.

"Um, well…it would've been too great a risk. You know? The police might've been watching me—though, they seem to think I was as much a victim of Dr. Topo as the museum was. They were all serious telling me that you used me as an in. But like, I mean, they weren't half wrong. You were certainly using me. It's just I had full knowledge I was being used the whole time."

"Still, I was hoping to see you, but then I had the chance to take the items that morning."

"It's okay. I don't blame you."

"I wanted to see you, Leorio. At least to thank you."

"Thanks isn't necessary. And you can always just come see me if you're around my town one day. As usual. No big deal. You know where to find me."

"I'll try."

" _You will_. I'm holding you to it."

"Sure, Leorio."

Kurapika paused a moment to listen to the announcement of an upcoming stop, leading Leorio to assume Kurapika was on a train or a bus. Leorio didn't recognize the language, so Kurapika must've been far away from Susina already. When Kurapika came back to the call, it was to say he had to go now, that he was going to have to make a connection. Leorio told him it was fine, his flight would board in a half hour anyway. Kurapika said he knew, and Leorio realized that, yeah, Kurapika probably did.

"Well, then. Bye, Leorio."

" _See you later_ , Kurapika."

"Haha, okay. See you, Leorio."

The call ended. Leorio sighed and held the phone to his chest for a minute like an idiot because it was the closest thing he had to Kurapika's presence for now, and perhaps for a long time to come. Then, he took up he suitcase and went to stand in the line that was beginning to form on the boarding platform.


End file.
